A Year at the Movies: One Man's Filmgoing Odyssey (Paperback)

by Kevin Murphy (Author) "Beginning tomorrow, January 1, 2001, I, Kevin Murphy, promise to go to a theater and watch a movie every single day, for an entire year..." (more)
Key Phrases: smallest movie theater, cinema grill, blockbuster season, New York, Oak Street Cinema, Hong Kong (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Until they realize how much dreck Hollywood puts out, most people wouldn't mind having Murphy's job. Murphy, best known from the cult TV hit Mystery Science Theater 3000, set out to see a movie a day for all of 2001-and he's got the occasionally repetitive but usually amusing stories to prove it. He snuck into Cannes, roamed Route 66 in search of drive-ins, visited a midnight sun film festival in Lapland, and lived for a week on (almost) nothing but concession-stand food. Few would argue with Murphy's harangues at shoddy theaters and dopey summer movies ("people watch them simply to be distracted and sort of entertained, and since I can do this watching a ceiling fan, I bristle at paying good money"), and his jolly geekdom makes for engaging company. He's a highbrow man of the people, and even when the occasional chapter falls flat or the book feels a bit slapped together, he'll still make readers eager to grab a paper and see what's playing at the local theater.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
For some of us, moviegoing is an occasional pleasure. Kevin Murphy made it his obsession, and he did it for you.

Mr. Murphy, known to legions of fans as Tom Servo on the legendary TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, went to the movies every day for a year. That's every single day, people. For a whole fricken' year. And not only did he endure, he prevailed -- for this is the hilarious, poignant, fascinating journal of his adventures: the first book about the movies from the audience's point of view.

Kevin went to the multiplex, sure. But he didn't stop there. He found the world's smallest commercial movie theater. Another one made completely of ice. Checked out flicks in a tin-roofed hut in the South Pacific. Tooled across the desert from drive-in to drive-in in a groovy convertible. Lived for a week solely on theater food. Took six different women to the same date movie. Dressed up as a nun for the Sing-Along Sound of Music in London. Sneaked into the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. Smuggled an entire Thanksgiving dinner into a movie theater. And saw hundreds of films, from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, from the sublime to the unspeakable. Come along on a joyous global celebration of the cinema with a man on a mission -- to spend A Year at the Movies.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; 1 edition (August 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060937866
• ISBN-13: 978-0060937867
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #166,437 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Year's Worth of the Movie Sign, May 12, 2003

By	Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For those of you who don't know, Kevin "Tom Servo" Murphy took it upon himself to "go to the movies" at least once a day for the entirety of 2001, and to put that experience down on paper. Given the amount of garbage that was passing for entertainment that year, this may seem like a fearsome challenge. But Murphy appears to have relished the opportunity to get paid for what most of us consider a relaxing leisure-time activity. And even acknowledging the aspects of movie-going that he disliked, one gets the impression that he at least enjoyed complaining about them.

A YEAR AT THE MOVIES is a collection of essays written during that year-long adventure. Fifty-two chapters, one per week, detail everything that he felt worth mentioning. Murphy engages in several gimmicks during the course of his book. He attempts to find the smallest theatre in the world (apparently it's squeezed into some guy's house, and is an actual licensed and legal cinema). He brings six different women to the same date movie on consecutive days (his wife is described on the back cover as "long-suffering"). He smuggles in an entire turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day (the man fits a table under his coat - if there was an Academy Award for table-sneaking, he'd deserve it). He attempts spending a week eating nothing but concession stand food (again, his wife is described as "long-suffering").

However, as entertaining as these exploits are, I was more interested in the day-to-day things that Murphy picked up on during the year. He contrasts the service and attention to detail present at mom-n-pop, independent theatres to the impersonal, uncaring experience one might expect to see at the nearest massive movie multiplex (which Murphy humorously refers to as "googolplexes"). He looks at the reactions and discussions created by the small independent films, and counterpoints those thoughts with the ennui that seems to sweep over the audiences of the summer blockbusters, who become so uninvolved and distanced that they go merely to observe, to be vaguely distracted, and then to leave, never to think of the film again.

That said, I was definitely amused by some of his goofier antics. Getting into multiplexes without paying, and pretentious folks who haunt his local movie theatre on Hong Kong Cinema Morning are just two of the subjects that meet with his brand of comedy. Murphy was a writer on the ever-witty television show, MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, and a lot of those clever one-liners and quick humor are on display here. There's even a cameo by former MST3K host Michael J. Nelson, who gets dragged along to a viewing of Corky "Y'guys want some cookies?" Romano. Pity them. Or laugh at them. I did both.

The only really negative thing I have to say is that there was no table of contents, and no index. So, when I look back, I have to randomly flip my way around the fifty-two essays to find exactly what it is that I want to reread. Unless I managed to remember the date, I'm simply lost. The book is written in chronological order of his cinema-going year, but the vast majority of the essays aren't time or season specific. It's a minor quibble to be sure, yet it would be handy to have a quick way to find his essay on, say, why movies about rich people are usually lousy, or on the best way to sneak into the Cannes film festival, or on what it's like to see films in the land of the midnight sun.

I found A YEAR AT THE MOVIES to be a fun and occasionally thoughtful travelogue that maintains a good balance between being amusing and reflective. Murphy is definitely a fan of the movies, so his comments come from a love of the craft, and a sense of frustration when it doesn't live up to its potential. He comes across as a faintly snobbish curmudgeon in parts, but a very likeable guy all the same. He's definitely an aficionado of most aspects involved with movie watching, and I found his enthusiasm contagious.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprisingly big book, February 6, 2003

By	Andrew S. Rogers (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As Kevin Murphy recounts his movie-a-day filmgoing year, I was afraid the story might start to drag somewhat, or that he would feel the need to review every film he saw. Instead, I got drawn into a book that, while relatively long (about 350 pages), was still intelligible, and enjoyable both in small doses and in longer, more concentrated, readings.

Murphy divides his epic, sensibly, into 52 week-long essays. The films he sees that week inform the topic of his essays, but seldom *are* the topic. Instead, we get interesting, and highly personal, looks at all different aspects of the filmgoing experience, ranging from travelogues to Italy, Finland, or Australia, to a few hours working at a multiplex theater, to meditations on genres like kung fu, fantasy, or horror films. There are also insightful and well-informed meditations on the state of American filmgoing, the impact of the multiplex and the near-demise of arthouse cinemas, and a useful chapter on the difference between film reviewers and film critics. There's an awful lot in this book, and it's nearly all good stuff.

Kevin Murphy clearly knows and loves films, and he is a fine writer. A comparison with the two books by his former MST3K colleague Michael J. Nelson (who makes a brief cameo in this book) might be in order: I found both of Mike's books really funny, but frankly haven't found myself in a big hurry (yet?) to go back and re-read them. Kevin's, on the other hand, isn't intentionally funny "humor writing," but still has a lot of entertaining stories, asides, and turns of phrases. And I could see myself re-reading it a lot more easily.

I waited impatiently to get a copy of this book (in part -- I'm obliged to say it -- because I loved Tom Servo), and it definitely paid off the wait. Film fans and MST fans both will, I think, come to the same conclusion.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just about the movies..., February 24, 2003

By	Michael Valdivielso (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The book is about the whole moviegoing adventure. He is not just talking about the movies, like the first Harry Potter flick, or just about the stars, like Jackie Chan, but everything. The theater, the audience, the food, the seats! He goes to film festivals in France and Finland, drive-ins in the desert, theaters in the South Pacific, Italy and in Australia. He talks about films from Hong Kong and films from before the invention of sound. He talks about the smallest commercial movie theater, where the owner sells the tickets out of his bedroom window, to the multiplex, the sing-along film, the club cinema and the cinema grill. He deals with the food, even trying to live on popcorn, individual pizzas and shrink-wrapped sandwiches for a week. He deals with movies in the park, movies in the museums and movies in Hollywood! He deals with the people too. The critics, the fanboys, the kids and the people who work AT the movies.
It is funny, yet has serious points. One whole chapter is on September 11. It so happens I was reading this while on the bus to the Pentagon. This chapter was so powerful that I started to cry.
The book reminds me of the greatest movie I ever saw. Star Wars. My family saw it when it first came out in a drive-in theater. My brother and I sat on top of the car, a station-wagon, and watched this great sci-fi flick on a background of real stars. AND it will never happen again. Drive-ins are few and far between. The movie itself has been CHANGED and even cars are different. I don't trust any of this tiny models to hold up my own weight (or even that of my brother's young kids).
Each chapter is a week, with the list of the films he saw and where he saw them (which makes a nice list of movies you might wish to rent or buy in the future).
Flip open the book, get a bucket of butter-flavored popcorn and ENJOY!